Wanano language

Guanano
Wanano
Piratapuyo
Native to	Brazil, Colombia
Ethnicity	Wanano, Piratapuyo
Native speakers	unknown (2,600 cited 1998–2007)
Language family	Tucanoan Eastern North Guanano
Language codes
ISO 639-3	Either: gvc – Wanano (Kótirya) pir – Piratapuyo
Glottolog	wana1272

Guanano (Wanano), or Piratapuyo, is a Tucanoan language spoken in the northwest part of Amazonas in Brazil and in Vaupés in Colombia. It is spoken by two peoples, the es and the es. They do not intermarry, but their speech is 99% lexically similar.

Classification

Wanano/Piratapuyo belongs to the Northern branch of the Eastern Tucanoan languages, along with Tucano.

Geographic distribution

Speakers of Wanano live in Brazil and Colombia. According to Stenzel (2004), a census taken in October, 2003 establishes the Wanano population as 1,560, approximately one-third of whom currently live in Brazil . The Wanano live in 21 traditional communities along the Vaupés River.

Phonology

Consonants

Wanano consonant phonemes

	Bilabial		Alveolar		Palato alveolar		Velar		Glottal
Plosive	p	b	t	d			k	ɡ	ʔ
Affricate					tʃ
Fricative			s						h
Flap			r
Approximant	w				j

Nasalization is carried on vowels. Voiced plosives and /j/ may surface as the nasal consonants /m/, /n/, /ŋ/, and /ɲ/ in the environment of nasal vowels.

Vowels

Wanano vowel phonemes

	Front	Central	Back
High	i	ɨ	u
Low	e	a	o

Suprasegmental Elements

Syllables may be marked with either a high or low stress accent. Nasalization is suprasegmental and moves from left to right through a word.

Grammar

Wanano/Piratapuyo is an SOV language.

Vocabulary

Personal Pronouns

Wanano personal pronouns

	Singular	Plural
1st Person Exclusive	/yɨɨ́/ [yɨˈʔɨ] "I"	/sã́/ [ˈsã] "we (and not you)"
1st Person Inclusive		/bãrĩ́/ [mãˈňĩ] "we (and you)"
2nd Person	/bɨ̃ɨ̃́/ [mɨ̃ˈʔɨ̃] "you"	/bɨ̃sã́/ [mɨ̃ɨ̥̃ˈsã] "you"
3rd Person Masculine	/tíro/ [ˈtiro] "he"	/tídã/ [ˈtinã] "they"
3rd Person Feminine	/tí-koro/ [ˈtikoro] "she"